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Compare And Contrast The Roman Republic With The Roman Empire
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The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire
The Roman Republic was the era of roman civilization and begin with the overthrow of the kingdom conventionally dated 509bc and ended in 27BC by the establishment of the Roman Empire. Under the Roman Republic, it was a cultural mix of Latin and Greek elements and monopolized as a small number of large families. The Roman Empire was established in 389BC in the quasi-perpetual war.
The Roman Republic demonstrated extreme resilience and managed to overcome the losses ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"smwkzRbc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Burckhardt)","plainCitation":"(Burckhardt)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1185,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"itemData":{"id":1185,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts\" Nobilitas and Homo Novus\"","container-title":"Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte","page":"77-99","author":[{"family":"Burckhardt","given":"Leonhard A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1990"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Burckhardt). It confronted a long steak of social and political crisis due to several wars fought during its period but achieved political equality in several steps during the 4th BC, and in the last decade of the republic, military conquest started by most of their generals who wanted to gain the control of the political system. A comparison and contrast of the Roman Empire with the Roman Republic would be discussed in this paper.
While the Roman Empire covers the history of Rome from the fall of the republic and begun expanding shortly. After the founding of the republic in 6th century BC, though it did not expand outside the Italian ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"WDpShmWC","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Gowing)","plainCitation":"(Gowing)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1178,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/Z7M7U3W3"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/Z7M7U3W3"],"itemData":{"id":1178,"type":"book","title":"Empire and memory: the representation of the Roman Republic in imperial culture","publisher":"Cambridge University Press","ISBN":"1-139-44582-0","author":[{"family":"Gowing","given":"Alain M."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2005"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Gowing). The emperors during the reign of the Roman Empire granted freedom to the inhabitants of the empire but the controls remain in-person to the emperor and passed in the noble family.
The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire had faced instability in their periods and eventually caused their demise ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"RVIQPWV9","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Richardson)","plainCitation":"(Richardson)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1179,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/4X4NHSFA"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/4X4NHSFA"],"itemData":{"id":1179,"type":"article-journal","title":"Imperium Romanum: empire and the language of power","container-title":"The journal of roman studies","page":"1-9","volume":"81","author":[{"family":"Richardson","given":"John S."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1991"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Richardson). Both sustained almost the same period and based on this information, it would be difficult to say that which one is more successful than the other. If we consider the extent and its persistence after the collapse of the Western Empire, then it has been suggested that ultimately the Roman Empire was more successful than the Roman Republic.
The Roman Republic organized most of the Italian Peninsula and then they spread it to the Mediterranean, where they encountered many difficulties and conflicts with the Phoenicians. They started from the colonization strategy and slowly control the Sicily ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"J7VKPzlA","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Rathbone)","plainCitation":"(Rathbone)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1180,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/6TU8DUKG"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/6TU8DUKG"],"itemData":{"id":1180,"type":"article-journal","title":"The development of agriculture in the ‘Ager Cosanus’ during the Roman Republic: Problems of evidence and interpretation","container-title":"The Journal of Roman Studies","page":"10-23","volume":"71","author":[{"family":"Rathbone","given":"Dominic W."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1981"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Rathbone). During their stay, they fought three wars and won all the panic wars at great cost, the peoples who fought these wars were forced to abandon their farms and homes for a long time which were in disrepair. Most of them had to sell their homes and farms to wealthy citizens and due to this, they had lost the right to vote (Corbeill). They ended up with civil war and afterword's they had to choose slavery revolted by the Spartacus and ended with most of the generals raising their private armies among the Caesar. The dying republic of Roman was then taken over by the famous triumvirate for a short period and soon collapsed by the death of Crassus and then, Caesar, the first Roman emperor took control of the empire.
The Roman Empire itself gains considerably more extensive and had territorial gains, but itself empire no lasted more period then the roman republic ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"smwkzRbc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Burckhardt)","plainCitation":"(Burckhardt)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1185,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"itemData":{"id":1185,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts\" Nobilitas and Homo Novus\"","container-title":"Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte","page":"77-99","author":[{"family":"Burckhardt","given":"Leonhard A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1990"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Burckhardt). On the other hand, the roman republic limits itself only to the Italian peninsula and the nostrum which they commonly called their sea. Roman Empire extended itself to Britain in the west, and in the east, they spread to the banks of Rhine and Danube rivers. It embraced a vast number of peoples and led them to spread their cultural heritage throughout Western Europe ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"smwkzRbc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Burckhardt)","plainCitation":"(Burckhardt)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1185,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"itemData":{"id":1185,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts\" Nobilitas and Homo Novus\"","container-title":"Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte","page":"77-99","author":[{"family":"Burckhardt","given":"Leonhard A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1990"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Burckhardt). It must be considered that the vast extent of the Roman Empire resulted in its division into two major empire afterword's, the eastern empire and the western empire. The western empire had faced difficulty in continuation and led to the demise of the empire in 476, whereas the eastern empire was quite successful and continued till 1453 and the fall of Constantinople to the Turks.
After expelling the Etruscan king Tarquinii the proud, the Romans builds their republic. And onwards, the Romans suspicious of all kinds of arrangements political that smacked of the monarchy. In reality, power remained in the hands of the Roman nobility but the roman republic was shared between wholly appointed senate and two elected consuls. Although the roman nobility didn't get their way and clashes between them and the ordinary roman peoples, or plebs ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"smwkzRbc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Burckhardt)","plainCitation":"(Burckhardt)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1185,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"itemData":{"id":1185,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts\" Nobilitas and Homo Novus\"","container-title":"Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte","page":"77-99","author":[{"family":"Burckhardt","given":"Leonhard A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1990"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Burckhardt). In the upper roman society, there was also antagonism between leading families that causes frequent military clashes and over breaks of civil disorders during their period.
In the Roman Empire, power was mostly concentrated in the person of the emperor. While it can be contrasted with the roman republic where the senate was more influential ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"smwkzRbc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Burckhardt)","plainCitation":"(Burckhardt)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1185,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"itemData":{"id":1185,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts\" Nobilitas and Homo Novus\"","container-title":"Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte","page":"77-99","author":[{"family":"Burckhardt","given":"Leonhard A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1990"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Burckhardt). It was there also in the republic but was less influence during the period of empire and mostly the emperor assumed the roles of consul, and the censors ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"smwkzRbc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Burckhardt)","plainCitation":"(Burckhardt)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1185,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"itemData":{"id":1185,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts\" Nobilitas and Homo Novus\"","container-title":"Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte","page":"77-99","author":[{"family":"Burckhardt","given":"Leonhard A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1990"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Burckhardt). One might be naturally thinking that during the roman republic citizenry had more political powers then in Roman Empire but this is not the necessary case, because most of the Romans were either slaves or women or freedmen and therefore all of them had no political powers in ancient Rome during their period ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"smwkzRbc","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Burckhardt)","plainCitation":"(Burckhardt)"},"citationItems":[{"id":1185,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/p8kwKNoG/items/FWHUQG2Q"],"itemData":{"id":1185,"type":"article-journal","title":"The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts\" Nobilitas and Homo Novus\"","container-title":"Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte","page":"77-99","author":[{"family":"Burckhardt","given":"Leonhard A."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1990"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Burckhardt). During a certain period while in the Roman Empire, the local government did a lot more support to the average middle roman peoples then they have had in the roman republic. And the political system during the republic rule mostly confined the small circle of the patrician in Roman. Considering the extent and its persistence after the collapse of the western empire, then it has been suggested that eventually, the Roman Empire was more successful than the Roman Republic.
Works Cited:
ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Burckhardt, Leonhard A. “The Political Elite of the Roman Republic: Comments on Recent Discussion of the Concepts" Nobilitas and Homo Novus".” Historia: Zeitschrift Fur Alte Geschichte, 1990, pp. 77–99.
Gowing, Alain M. Empire, and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Rathbone, Dominic W. “The Development of Agriculture in the ‘Ager Cosanus’ during the Roman Republic: Problems of Evidence and Interpretation.” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 71, 1981, pp. 10–23.
Richardson, John S. “Imperium Romanum: Empire and the Language of Power.” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 81, 1991, pp. 1–9.
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